Wednesday, 16 April 2014

Having started my
whisky love affair around 10 years ago with Aldi’s 8 year old Highland Black, a
blend I consider to be a ‘standard supermarket blend’ (though it probably
actually isn’t, given its declared 8 years), I have, as my knowledge of whisky
and taste for it develops, for some time now held a curiosity about how good
standard supermarket blends actually are. I hadn’t bought one since the last
time I bought the Highland Black, as you generally only have to pay a couple of
pounds more to get a basic entry level brand – Cutty Sark, Ballantine’s Finest,
Dewar’s, Whyte and Mackay, Bell’s, Teachers, Grant’s, Johnnie Walker Red, and
The Famous Grouse are all what I would call affordable – but that curiosity
kept on niggling away at me. I was going to have to do something about it,
something like getting a bottle of each standard supermarket blend in all at
once and holding a tasting – even if it was just with myself.

Now, I didn’t want
to be stuck with 3.6-4.2 litres of crap scotch when I was done, but the
supermarkets have already thought of that – you can buy most of them in 35cl
bottles, so while I wouldn’t normally buy a half size bottle without good
reason, I decided to make that one of the experiment’s conditions of entry.
Unfortunately, that prevents Highland Black from entering, but I can always get
it to play the winner later on – assuming this experiment doesn’t put me off
cheap blends for good.

I was actually
thinking of doing this with all the genres of spirits, but while drinking a
glass of standard Sainsburys white rum one day, I realised white rum, gin and
vodka were all likely to be dull – and then I would be stuck with litre upon litre of crap spirits. On top of
that, budget spirits brands tend to be around only 36-37.5% alcohol and that
renders them fairly uninteresting for a start, but with whisky, you can’t even
call it whisky unless it reaches the standard 40%. To paraphrase Jim Murray; don’t add water to your whisky, as in most
cases that will bring it to below 40% ABV… and then it ain’t whisky no mo’.
Something like that.

So anyway, finally
we will know which supermarket has the
best standard blended scotch. I’ll be contacting the winner to congratulate
them on their prestigious achievement, and I’ll let you know if they respond.

Competition Rules

It must be a standard blended scotch. Some supermarkets offer a
super cheap expression – budget, no frills, value, everyday essentials
(perhaps not every day… I’m not
sure a supermarket would be allowed to
suggest you drink scotch every day…) and the like – these are ineligible,
as is any supermarket expression that is slightly above standard.

It must state “bottled for [insert supermarket]” on the label.

It must be available in a 35cl bottle (or smaller).

Those are all the rules.

There was going to
be a rule about not having to ask for the whisky at a counter, thus weeding out
mini-markets and things that can’t be considered a supermarket. In the end
though, I had to drop this rule because the Cooperative is a supermarket, it does have its own brand of blended scotch, and I had to ask for it from behind the
counter in the Piccadilly Gardens branch.

Collection

Yes, I am a geek,
but I am not geeky enough to visit all the supermarkets in one day in order to
buy their standard blend. Nor did I want to spend around £50 on cheap scotch in
one day. Instead, I figured I could just collect one whenever I was passing a supermarket,
or happened to be popping in…

Time to start
engineering “impromptu” trips to Tesco, Morrison’s, Asda, Sainsburys, Waitrose
and Marks and Spencer. Aldi don’t do a half bottle, nor do Lidl, though they would
have been able to enter if they did.

Tesco (Burnage) and
Morrison’s were accomplished with no difficulty, since I go in Tesco fairly
frequently anyway and we were passing the Morrison’s by Sheffield’s Parkway on
the way to Phil’s one weekend.

A week or two later
a leisurely Saturday afternoon turned into a trip to the big Asda (Hulme), and
then a need to pick up lunch one Wednesday led to a stop at Sainsburys
(Birchfields Road). It wasn’t all plain
sailing though.

I knew Waitrose
would be tricky, since we don’t have many of those in the north. I heard Mrs
Cake was heading to Wilmslow one weekend and enlisted her to pop in, even
finding the product online in order to provide her with a picture and make sure
she got the right one... only for her to change her plans and therefore scupper
mine. That turned out to be the last I collected, having to call into the small
one on Bridge Street after a Christmas party.

The same week Mrs
Cake changed her plans with regard to Waitrose, a trip to the M&S in
Trafford Centre proved fruitless. They didn’t have their standard blend in a
35cl bottle, and while they did have a 20cl of the 5 year old Kenmore variety I
quickly decided that would be ineligible since it was one class above standard.
I actually stood there for about 5 minutes, hoping I’d spot a 35cl standard
blend if I looked hard enough, but in the end I had to admit defeat and wait
until I could pop into the M&S in town – even managing to resist the
temptation to buy the Kenmore just for the sake of it. Rules: sometimes they
are good.

I finally had to
exclude M&S altogether when I did make it to the big store in town, and
they didn’t have a 35cl bottle. They do have it in 70cl, and I would really
like to be able to compare it to all the others, but I’m sorry M&S, rules
are rules so don’t go breakin em.

Pricing

More or less across
the board, the blends were priced at a tempting and affordable £6.50 to £7.
Asda, Tesco and Morrison’s inhabited the lower end of the scale, while
Sainsburys consider themselves that 50p classier. Waitrose’s website states that
theirs is £7, but that must be online and in the big stores, since I had to pay
something like £7.35 (sorry, I forget exactly how much it was).

The real surprise
though, was that I had to pay a ma-hoossive
£8.35 for the Cooperative’s entry. At this stage I don’t know whether this
is because I bought it from a small city centre store and whether it would have
been cheaper say, in West Didsbury or whether it’s just that expensive. What I do know is that I don’t want to be
collecting supermarket whiskies forever, so I just bought it anyway to hurry
things along a little. What started out as a long term project to be completed
whenever had quickly turned into an obsession as I clamoured to complete my
collection and get the tasting underway. Time would tell whether it would be
worth all the effort.

In total then, I
spent £42.19 on 210cl of standard
supermarket blends.

Method

McKendrick's (Asda) vs Waitrose

So how would the
test be carried out? I considered pouring all six into glasses at once and then
just drinking them side by side, but I actually wanted a companion for this
experiment. Enter David, fellow member of the Manchester Whisky Club, who was
delighted to come over one Friday night and help out.

I would ideally have
liked to have two rounds, three whiskies in each round with a winner being
picked from each and facing each other in the final, but it turns out I only
have 5 glencairn glasses. So instead, David came up with a winner stays on
system, whereby we would each start with the same two samples, decide on a
winner, and then compare it with the next sample until one was left standing at
the end.

Before we could
start the tasting though, let us consider another important factor,
presentation.

Presentation

spirit wheel

I like that they all
come in bottles of an identical size and shape. It means you can arrange them
like this for interesting photographs. I actually like this bottle shape
anyway, since it is clearly designed to fit snuggly into your jacket pocket,
like a hip flask (though it isn’t shaped to fit your hip). If you see someone
buying one of these, you just assume they’re going to drink it straight away,
don’t you? Perhaps that’s why M&S don’t do one – they’re too classy for
that kind of thing.

It is interesting to
me to see the various similarities and differences. Both Tesco and Asda have
gone for a traditional and professional look. Asda have actually gone so far as
to name theirs McKendricksWhisky - lah-di-dah - rather than just something generic like Blended Scotch or Select Reserve.

Sainsburys and
Morrisons on the other hand, have gone for minimal fuss with a modern,
uncluttered label, one depicting a distillery in a circular box and the other a
thistle. Co-op have depicted a piper and included a silver medal from the IWSC
(the only entry to do so), while Waitrose haven’t even bothered to include a
generic Scottish image, but there you go.

I find it interesting
that Asda and Tesco have specified that their product was aged for at least 3
years in oak barrels, since that’s a minimum requirement for calling it scotch
whisky. So for whatever reason, the other supermarkets have chosen to eschew
that information, presumably secure in the knowledge that their customers
either know that already, or aren’t likely to be swayed by any lack of age
statement and maturing information. I suppose if you’re buying an own brand
blend, you’re not snooty about these things – since the only other option is to
leave the supermarket and go to another one… not really worth it for the sake
of an age statement.

Particularly amusing
was that, when I searched for Asda’s standard blend on their website, it
informed me that the 35cl bottle is frequently bought with Asda brown onions.
Make of that what you will.

Colour

before...

This is weird. They
are all exactly the same colour.
There has to be caramel added, so presumably this represents an exact whisky
colour profile that is considered to be most attractive to the consumer –
though I can’t think why; I certainly don’t find it inspiring. This is whisky
that is brown rather than an attractive pale gold or amber. One thing’s for
sure, none of the supermarkets have decided to take a risk by being any
different to any of the others. It makes you wonder whether the whisky is in
fact the same. It will be a massive disappointment if that turns out to be the
case.

Surprisingly, this
uniformity doesn’t carry over into the glass. Yes, they are similar, but when
we poured our first two samples (Asda and Waitrose), we noticed that the
Waitrose was darker. Then, later we noticed that Tesco’s entry was closer to
the Waitrose colour, but not as… shimmery.

Tasting

I had planned to
break this next section down into categories of nose, palate and finish,
but let’s be realistic; with all that booze floating about and only a very
light tea consumed, we were starting to get hammered pretty quick and my notes
became illegible and fragmented. I’ll just try and relate what I’ve got.

We started, as I
said with Asda’s McKendrick’s and Waitrose.
The nosing immediately revealed a startling difference. We liked Asda, but Waitrose
gave a hit of nail varnish, caramel and molasses.

When we moved on to
the tasting, we were immediately impressed with Asda. It is light and sweet,
reminding me of the Ballantine’s Finest
that I’d recently been enjoying. David said it had a ‘grittiness’ that he
liked. I didn’t really understand and we had a brief discussion about how
people seem to describe spirits they are trying for the first time as “smooth”,
and how in a lot of cases I a) don’t know what they mean, and b) think they’re
just making it up for something to say because smooth is considered good. David
and I agreed we both like a degree of roughness to our spirits, a bit of burn.

Anyway, when it came
to the Waitrose, we were both horrified. What
the fuck is this? It’s minging. How dare they bottle this and pass it off as
blended scotch? It reminded me very much of the Wall Streetthat I picked up in Vietnam. We concluded it had
definitely been coloured with caramel spirit, and was devoid of any character
or redeeming features. Waitrose, this is just awful.

So Asda was the
clear (and unexpected) winner. We selected Tesco as the next contender,
refilling our Asda glass, and swilling out the Waitrose one. I tried drinking
the whole Waitrose sample, but it wasn’t nice, so I threw some of it down the
sink. For the second round I poured smaller measures.

We noted that Tesco
gave an impression of being artificially coloured on the nose, but it didn’t
appear as shiny as Waitrose. When it came to tasting though, we concluded it
was bad, though not quite as bad as
the Waitrose had been.

Asda was victorious
again, and would next face the Morrison’s offering. By this stage I was
struggling to taste anything so we had to start sipping sparkling water in
between samples to keep our tired palates awake.

Morrison’s proved to
be fairly inoffensive on the nose, and on the palate a little harsh – but I
liked that. It had a slightly dark flavour at the end, but while it was no
match for Asda, it was actually quite pleasant.

Co-op was next up.
As [easily] the most expensive of the competitors, you’d be hoping it would
have a flavour profile to match. I’m going to give you direct quotes from my
note book here:

“I like the Co-op, & [sic] I’m not sure
if it’s Asda beating… It was agreed that Vince Vaughn is a twat… Yesh [sic]
Co-Op not as good”.

Not as good, but fairly good nonetheless.

Finally then, we
have Sainsburys. David proclaimed that this sample was identical to Asda, but I maintained that Asda just has a little
something extra, that I’m going to call the
edge. There was just a note about the Sainsburys that didn’t sit quite
right. Nevertheless, a decent effort.

Before we move on to
the verdict, I’d just like to share one more note from my book in direct
quotation:

...more or less after.

“David is now unsure what he is drinking, while
Neil is unsure of what went before.”

Yeah, we were pretty
hammered and ready to start drinking the special stuff we’d been saving. David
had brought an Amrut Fusion while the
most special thing I had at the time was the Glen Scotia 16. It was about time we ordered some pizza also.

Verdict

When considering the
verdict, you’ve got to ask yourself what
was the purpose of all this anyway? Obviously I want to see which of the
supermarkets has the best blended scotch, but to what purpose? I suppose I’m
trying to use this as a benchmark. You see, it isn’t just blends that
supermarkets produce their own versions of. There are also ultra-cheap blends,
slightly more upmarket, even aged blends, single malts based on various of the
distilling regions of Scotland then there are the different varieties of rum,
brandy… so I’m wondering whether the quality of the standard blend might tell
us something about all the other varieties of own brand alcohol. Sadly you know
it won’t. I’ll ultimately have to try all the other varieties too. Since I’m
destined to fail on that score, why don’t I break it down to the following
questions, and see if that tells us anything:

Are these comparable
in terms of quality to the cheap standard brands that they are emulating?

In some cases, yes.
Asda, Morrison’s, Sainsburys and Co-op all supplied decent, even pleasant
products. As I said, Asda seemed very similar to Ballantine’s, while a later
tasting of Sainsburys brought to mind the standard Grant’s. They certainly
aren’t to be sniffed at.

Would I buy any of
these again?

I would definitely
buy Asda’s again, without a doubt. The others listed as comparable above? Sure,
if I only had £7, needed a bottle of
scotch and only had access to one of those supermarkets. I would buy with
confidence.

Is any one
supermarket brand the daddy of them all?

Finally, yes. Asda
confounded expectation, and is duly crowned the daddy of them all. Seriously,
well done Asda and keep up the good work. All that remains is to give you the
full list, in order of preference. Here you go:

McKendrick’s by Asda

Morrison’s Blended Scotch Whisky

Sainsburys Blended Scotch

Cooperative Blended Scotch

Tesco Special Reserve

Waitrose Blended Scotch

Thanks for joining
me for this scientific experiment. I hope you’ve enjoyed it, found it useful,
and that it has answered the question of whether supermarket blends are any
good once and for all. Don’t worry, this isn’t the end by any stretch of the
imagination. There are always more spirits to try, and David tells me he’d like
to do the same thing with the super cheap
supermarket blends, so I’ll be sure to let you know how that turns out.

See you again, then.

Postcript

While David and I
agreed on the night, and while the results will stand as testament to that, in personal
tastings since the Cooperative Blended Scotch has actually excelled, while
Morrison’s, which placed 2nd, has failed to impress, so I would
actually like to elevate the Co-operative Blended Scotch to 2nd, but
that’s just for me. For the rest of you, take the ranking above.

8 comments:

While shopping in Lldl today I bought a bottle (50cl) Hamstead London Dry Giin, made a very nice G&T ice & a slice but I didn't like it in the Dry Martini I had B4 dinner, too much perfume! Anyway I decided to check out its credentials and came across a link to your site. I am very impressed with your dedication in persuit of the samples, enthusiasm and integrity in the tasting session and thank you very much for saving a lot of us from suffering as you guys must have in your quest for the truth.Regards

Great article, cheers, I enjoyed the read and will definitely take it all onboard and it is now filed in a cabinet at the back of my mind that asda's effort is the best to go for as far as the 35cl bottles go. Just recently got into whisky myself, but started off by taking the advice of those whisky snob types, who only recommend single malts and pull a disgusted face at the suggestion of drinking blended varieties. I took this onboard, but in my mind, if it tastes good and is cheap, I'm happy.

Thanks Richie. I hope it's been of some use. In all likelihood you will find the better examples of whisky in the single malt section, but you'll be paying a lot more, and they aren't all going to be to your taste. You're right though; it's all about personal taste and value for money.

I like supermarket scotch because I don't have to feel guilty about mixing it with cheap cola, lemonade, or iron brew just to get shitfaced but stay classy. But I also love a decent malt or pure grain.

You really should try Lidl and Aldi for drinks, the portion size be damned! Both the stores have real gems on the shelves!

Definitions

What happens when you zone out after having had a cheeky lunchtime pint.

Alcothusiast:

Not an alcoholic, someone who appreciates booze.

Anxiety, The:

The uneasy feeling that accompanies any noteworthy hangover.

Booze Buffet Mentality:

The propensity people have to go nuts whenever there's a free bar.

Booze Porn:Photos of alcohol.

Bread Chest:Not booze related, but this term describes the indigestion you get from eating too many bread products too quickly. Just putting it out there...

Crawler's Block:The inability to decide where to go next during a pub crawl - often resulting in crawl stagnation and someone saying, "shall we just have another one here?"

Crawl Stagnation:The result of failing to plan a pub crawl sufficiently - lack of a route, theme or over-familiarity with nearby pubs can all be contributing factors.

Excess Induced Alcohol Aversion:An intolerance for a drink caused (usually) by one occasion of overindulgence.

The Family:My whisky collection.

MOMA:

Moment of Maximum Appreciation. Every bottle has one. It's the time you drink it where you enjoy it most.

Old Man Pub:Traditional British pub, renowned for being quiet, cosy and frequented by old men. Much favoured by people who like a nice chat while they drink.Psychological Drinks Cabinet:Collective term relating to the kinds of alcoholic drinks a person has need for.Road Beers:

Cans of beer that you take with you when you go out, to consume on the way.

The 3 Types of Rum:White, gold and dark. Together they form the base of many a great cocktail.

About Me

Neil Cake is interested in all types of booze, but is by no means an authority or expert. Most of the time he's just trying to be funny, but he is learning, and enjoys sharing his adventures and what he learns on the Drink it How You Like it blog.
Thengyuverrymuuuuuch.